Variation in fundamental frequency (F₀) constitutes a valuable source of information for researches across many disciplines, with a shared interest in speech. Different methods for estimating F₀ vary in estimation accuracy and accessibility, and there is yet no gold standard. Through a bibliometric survey, this study examines what methods were the most frequently used in the speech scientific community during the years 2010–2016. Secondly, the most used methods are evaluated against a ground truth reference, with a specific focus on their accuracy in estimating F₀ in male and female speakers, respectively.

The results show that Praat is the dominant method by far, followed by STRAIGHT, RAPT and YIN. This pattern holds across a range of different research areas, although within Acoustics and Engineering, Praat’s dominance is less pronounced. In the evaluation including Praat, RAPT and YIN — with their default and gender-adapted settings — Praat also proved to be the most accurate. The finding that adapting Praat’s pitch range settings by gender leads to further improvements should encourage researchers to do this routinely.